


the world's finest

by wearethewitches



Series: two sides to every coin [2]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Adoption, Angst with a Happy Ending, Backstory, Children, Consequences, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Flashbacks, Foster Care, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Supercat Week, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-22 05:55:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20869286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethewitches/pseuds/wearethewitches
Summary: Kara tells Cat about her childhood.[ set in the same universe as 'we must keep daring' ][ before and after ; supercat day 5-6 ]





	1. BEFORE

_ National City, Earth; December of 1997 _

“What was it like, arriving here?”

Outside, white crystals swirls in a flurry in front of the windows – a winter storm that turns National City white and covers the balcony in a thin layer of snow. In the safety and warmth of Kara's apartment, Kara lets Carter and Kal-El run around while she has tea and snacks with her friend, whose question turns her melancholy.

“Lonely,” she replies, “Scary.”

Cat digs her foot into Kara’s thigh pointedly. “What happened? You can’t have just roamed freely.”

“I didn’t _roam freely_,” Kara purses her lips, “but it wasn’t happy. It’s not something I like thinking about, Cat.”

“I’m your friend. I want to know.” Cat says, stubborn and straight-faced, chin tilted _just so_. Kara sighs, sipping her tea and stalling as long as she can, while she gets her words together.

Eventually, she begins.

“I arrived on Earth in nineteen eighty…”

* * *

_ Death Valley, Earth; April of 1980 _

Her first breath of air threatens to choke her.

It’s too _light_, not heavy enough. Heat presses against her skin and she feels like she could float away. A gust of wind blows her hair around her face and Kara puts her hands up, blinking away tears as she fumbles her way out of her pod. The land around her is arid and not so different from Krypton…but it _is _different. The sky is blue and the plant-life is green and brown, instead of yellow and purple.

“Where am I?” she whispers, looking to her pod for answers. Eventually, darkness falls and the constellations above her are strange and far away. They aren’t bright and immediate, like they are on Krypton and she can’t locate Daxam or more than a single moon, which sits in the sky like a tiny silver disc.

_This is all wrong!_

Hunger grips her. Kara leaves her pod behind in search of civilisation, sure her parents wouldn’t send her to an abandoned world. Eventually, she finds a long, grey track on the ground and she marks the location of her pod in her mind, using the landscape as a guide.

A vehicle approaches. She waves her arm weakly and it slows, revealing itself to be an outdated mechanical construct with a faded red coating and mud all over the wheels.

“Kid, what are you doing out here?” The local inhabitant questions her, their vehicle window open. Kara shakes in exhaustion, noting briefly to herself that she’s lucky: the planet populace are basic bipedals, similar to Krypton in shape and size. She can blend in, hopefully. The vehicle halts completely, the engine noises vanishing with a loud _huff_.

They exit the vehicle in time to catch her as she collapses.

* * *

_ National City, Earth; December of 1997 _

“That can’t have been easy,” Cat murmurs. “You’re lucky they were so helpful.”

“Edith took me to the police, rather than a hospital,” states Kara dryly. “_That_ was helpful. I have no idea what might have happened if they tried taking my blood. I hadn’t spent more than three hours in the sunlight at that point. Either their needles would have broken or they would have taken samples of my DNA.”

“And we don’t want that.”

Smiles are exchanged between the two women, before Carter vaults the sofa back, crashing into Kara’s shoulders. Having heard him approaching – and having superhuman strength – Kara isn’t moved, a solid wall that Carter climbs rather than hurts himself on. One hand still holding her tea, Kara reaches up to poke her son, neck craning to look at him.

“What are you doing, kiddo?”

“_George, George, George of the Jungle!_” He sings, Kara grinning before singing the next line.

“_Strong as he can be!_”

Carter leans up, mouth opening wide to scream, “_Ahhhhhhhhh!_”

“_Watch out for that tree,_” Kara wiggles her shoulders, listening to him giggle and laugh, before he floats up and up, Kal-El joining him moments later. Calculating her youngest son’s trajectory, Kara is quick to put down her tea, flying up to grab him. “Careful, Kal-El.”

“_Ieiu_,” Kal-El mumbles, the toddler clearly about to cry. Kara floats back down to the sofa with him, hand rubbing his back as Carter snickers up above.

Cat, far from silent, snaps her fingers, pointing at him with narrowed eyes. “Get down. _Now._”

Carter’s snickers halt, face falling. “No…”

“Now, Carter-El,” repeats Cat, whose orders Carter follows moments later. He drops down onto the carpeted ground, sulking as Kara wraps her arms around Kal-El, soothing him with pats and rubs. “Your brother is upset.”

“I want to fly,” Carter mutters, crossing his little arms. At five years of age, it’s more adorable than anything else. Cat doesn’t look away from him and Carter, intimidated, looks to the ground. He scuffs it with his foot and Kara, hearing the minute tearing, glances his way.

“Come sit with us,” she invites, “before you break Cat’s carpet.”

Carter joins them in an instant, Cat gasping for breath as he curls up on her lap.

“Storytime?” he mumbles, looking at his mother. Kara nods, readjusting Kal-El on her lap. Once everyone’s settled, she begins again.

“I was put into foster-care.”

* * *

_ Sacramento, Earth; May of 1980 _

The ragged end of the blanket is fraying, lines over lines in a criss-cross that Kara has never been able to see before. She whimpers when she sees her own skeleton, eyes squeezing shut, _but it’s still there._ Her hand squeezes around the blanket corner and she hears the squeaking of Josie’s bed.

“Freak,” comes the mutter from her foster-sister. It’s supposed to be a whisper. To Kara, it’s like a shout.

Everything is too loud. Everything is too loud, too bright, too flimsy – she doesn’t understand what’s happening to her, this is nothing like how she expected. What did she even expect? The planet was shaking, her mother forced her into that damn pod-

“The fuck is wrong with you, Kara?” Josie asks, swinging down to look at her, the top bunk swaying ominously. Josie stares at her and Kara feels a heat to her eyes, building with her panic and her anger. “Serious- _holy mother of mercy_, what is happening to your eyes?”

She opens her eyes.

Red light pours out.

* * *

_ National City, Earth; December of 1997 _

“It was traumatic. I burned half of Josie’s hair off and singed the wall before I shut my eyes again. I thought it would happen if I opened my eyes and Josie was screaming so loud…”

A hand on her wrist, Cat’s thumb rubbing a circle as she strains to comfort her, held back by Carter on her lap. Kara’s son is on the edge of upset, his expression restrained, while Kal-El sleeps on her front, oblivious and snuffling.

“Was she hurt?”

“No, just freaked out,” mutters Kara, who still feels guilt from the experience seventeen years onwards. “My foster-parents didn’t know what happened and Josie couldn’t explain. She stayed away from me. I…didn’t let myself feel upset, after that.”

“How?” Cat questions, baffled and angry on her behalf. “Everyone has the right to emote.”

“I could _hurt people_,” Kara replies, “and if I got angry or upset, my control got worse. I slammed a door shut once and the doorframe broke. The supports of the house cracked.”

“S’why we have to be careful,” Carter mumbles, thumb tucked into his mouth. Cat grimaces, tugging at his wrist. Carter’s arm goes slack. “Like that.”

“Like that,” Kara copies. Cat purses her lips, the same way she does when she’s thinking of something grim. It’s as blank as she gets without concentrating, the only way to tell she’s concealing her reaction instinctually – she’s probably thinking of how Carter can act like a brick wall.

If Carter wasn’t so aware of his surroundings, Cat wouldn’t have been able to stop him at all.

* * *

_ San Diego, Earth; October of 1980 _

The press of a hundred thousand others is a test of her control, like it always is and Kara sucks in a greedy breath of air when she makes it to the councillors office, shoulders rolling and her fists clenching.

Mrs Morrison gives Kara a strained smile when she sits down.

“Thank-you for coming in, Kara.”

“It’s okay, I’m fine,” she replies, giving a sunny smile. Mrs Morrison doesn’t smile back, taking out a folder from the drawer of her desk, opening it. Kara peers at the writing upside down, expression wobbling as she reads what’s written. “Oh.”

“Mr Runcorn wasn’t impressed with your behaviour, Kara,” Mrs Morrison says, adjusting her glasses. “You can’t leave class without permission.”

“He shouldn’t have tried to grab Hayley when she needed to leave,” Kara replies, distressed. “It’s not fair – we’re supposed to feel _safe_ in the Department!”

“You weren’t in the Department,” Mrs Morrison reminds, gently.

“She needed to leave,” Kara repeats, listening to the tired guidance councillor sigh, rubbing at her sandy eyes. There’s a new scratch on her glasses, Kara notices.

“He got an x-ray of his hand, after you pushed him away. It’s not good, Kara – you fractured four really delicate bones,” says Mrs Morrison, as if Kara didn’t hear the tiny _cracks_ when she hit away his grasping hand. She’d not looked. Obviously, she should have. “He’s pressing charges.”

Kara’s lungs swell. “How? I’m a child.”

“Mr Runcorn said he’d talk to you first, privately. He’s probably just looking for an apology.” Mrs Morrison hits her with a pleading gesture, half-cringing and Kara can’t afford to have charges against her – who can?

“Alright. I’ll meet with him.”

* * *

_ National City, Earth; December of 1997 _

Cat bristles.

“I do not like where this is going.”

Kara gives a wan smile. “It wasn’t so bad, in the end.”

“I’ll reserve judgement until you finish the story.”

“No.”

Cat runs her hands through Carter’s curls, left arm clutched around him like a lifeline. “Kara…”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

A silence falls around the apartment for some time. To Kara, it’s not so different to normal – but the snowstorm outside certainly muffles the usual sights and sounds of the city. There are more people inside and less people on the roads, the wind blocking out some of the smaller pops and whistles.

“Kara,” Cat says eventually, voice hurt, “at least tell me if it was as bad as I’m thinking.”

“Oh,” Kara replies, tone light, “you mean, was he a paedophile? Yes, he was. No, he didn’t go the whole way – but he did go to jail in the end. I was asked whether he did anything to me, a year after I got myself moved to a new foster-home, when he was caught with another girl from the year below me. I testified in court, though you won’t find that on my file. It’s sealed, unless ordered by a judge.”

“_Kara._”

“All because of a broken hand,” Kara laughs mirthlessly, looking to Kal-El. She kisses his forehead, adjusting his onesie. “We have to be careful in this family. I’m lucky, though – I made my own mistakes, learning to control my powers. I can make sure my kids don’t do those things. Carter got in big trouble, after we met again.”

“Wasn’t allowed outside,” Carter says, voice muffled around the fabric of his shirt. Kara faintly muses on the time where she thought pacifiers were a good idea, before realising that super-strength and babies don’t mix.

Cat hums lowly, still looking at Kara, pained. She imagines that Cat might be wondering what happened, what Runcorn did to her – but Kara, she doesn’t want to talk about it. Not ever, not ever again. The court trial was bad enough.

“It wasn’t all bad, my childhood. I have enough memories from Krypton and from my adoptive family, later on, that I don’t have to think about the hardest times.”

“Your name is Kara Zor-El,” her friend murmurs, clearing her throat a second later. “You introduced yourself to me as _Kara Lee_.”

“The Lee’s adopted me when I was seventeen, but I met them in Los Angeles years before that-”

* * *

_ Los Angeles, Earth; June of 1982  _

“Kara Slater, you get over here right now, missy!”

She pushes one foot in front of the other, hands clamped around her backpack. She hasn’t got a suitcase, oh no – that would be too much money, a _useless investment._ Still bristling from the dark memories of her previous foster-family, Kara doesn’t bother looking up at her _new parents_ when her social worker, a scowling man by the name of Reggie, calls her over.

“Nice to meet you, Kara,” comes a gruff voice. Kara is almost afraid to look up, wondering what classical American archetype her new foster-father will embody. “I’m Johnny. This is my wife, Jenny. Before you ask, yeah, she’s half-Chinese and no, that’s not the first time she’s been asked that.”

Her curiosity peaks. Glancing up – and still expecting to find a fringe, despite it having grown out – Kara is almost startled by how…_nervous_ they look.

Johnny is clearly some kind of businessman, wearing cream trousers and a dark brown leather jacket over his shirt and tie, but his scruff is scraggly and his hair pulled back in a scruffy ponytail. His wife, Jenny, twitches and fidgets, with some clear Chinese ethnicity. Like Johnny, she’s dressed for business in a long skirt and a button-up shirt, a woman’s blazer draped over her arm alongside her handbag.

“We’re going to be your new foster-parents and we hope you enjoy your time with us,” Jenny says quietly, back straight, but still so short – Kara can see she’s taller than her, even hunched over. Jenny meets her eyes, worry clear. “Do you have a suitcase?”

“No,” Kara replies, wincing at her own shortness. “I mean, no, I don’t. I only have my backpack. Sorry.”

“No, it’s alright,” Jenny says quickly, looking to Reggie. “Will you be joining us for dinner, Mr Parsons?”

“Got to get back to San Diego,” Reggie’s scowl deepens as he looks to Kara, pointing roughly. “Behave for these guys. They’re decent people. Don’t screw it up by getting pissed off and wrecking the place. Next home is a group-home.”

“Got it, Reggie,” Kara says, voice clipped. She straightens, glaring at him. “I won’t _screw it up._”

He glares right back. “You’d better.”

* * *

_ National City, Earth; December 1997 _

“Your social worker makes more of an impression than your adopted parents.”

Kara shrugs. “That was just it, though. They were quiet, understanding – they’d had a lot of anger-management cases before, took them on purpose. Jenny got hurt by a few and I had a history with violence that I supposedly got away with. Reggie was too good at seeing damages. He thought I was a pyrotechnic, back when Josie got her hair lasered off.”

“Were they good parents?”

“They still are,” Kara says, smiling a little. She gets up, careful of Kal-El on her front as she fetches a photo from the fridge. Cat cranes her neck to watch, but settles back to normal when Kara hands the photograph to her, judging eyes taking in the smiling forms of her adoptive parents. “I haven’t seen them in a while – Jenny’s mom got deported a few years ago and they’re having trouble with her own paperwork with the ICE.”

“You’re a white woman,” Cat mutters, glancing her way, “I’m sure there’s something you could do with that privilege.”

“I’m sure there is, but they asked me to stay away,” says Kara, shrugging. “If my adoption gets brought into things, they don’t know what might happen. Johnny took Jen’s name, not the other way around. They don’t want to ruin my own life by bringing the adoption under the spotlight. It could get turned over.”

“I like Nana Jen,” Carter says, looking to Cat. “She sends me Lego.”

“Oh? And here I thought it was your own mother buying it for you,” Cat raises an eyebrow. Kara wrinkles her nose.

“No offence to Jenny, but I hate Lego. She’s smug about Carter taking a liking to it.”

Carter exclaims, “Building is fun!”

“I’m sure it is,” Kara rolls her eyes, unable to help smiling. “But I don’t like Lego.”

Carter’s eyes brighten. “Will Kal-El like Lego? He likes _eating_ it!”

Kara goes to argue with her five-year old about how Kal-El will be _firmly advised_ not to play with Lego _or_ eat it – but then Cat neatly cuts in with a question of her own.

“How did you find him?”


	2. AFTER

_ Kryptonian Embassy Pod No. 5, The Phantom Zone; Spacedate 934.31.2-22/February of 1995 _

The utter blackness of space features in Kal-El’s dreams from a young age. In stasis, he sleeps soundly – the same way he has slept soundly for the last fifteen years – but his eyes open and close over the years. Sometimes, he sees the blinking lights of a far-off craft and others, the darkness of the Phantom Zone and a reflection on the window of his pod, of a white blanket inlaid with a red _S_.

He won’t remember these things as he grows older, but the dark will scare him and the soft beeps of his pod’s guidance system activating will imprint on his subconscious as a sound that means hope, the same way the symbol for the House of El means safety.

Embassy Pod Number Five turns around, the symbol of Brainiac 8 flashing on the console. Behind it, Fort Rozz follows as the pod flies fast deep, out and away. It goes all the way to Earth.

Kal-El sleeps on.

* * *

_ National City, Earth; December of 1997 _

“He has nightmares about space and the Phantom Zone. He needs a nightlight.”

Cat looks at Kal-El on her lap in a slightly envious manner. “I _wish_ I had been allowed to have a night-light when I was young.”

Stroking his dark curls, so soft and springy compared to Carter’s glossy waves, Kara hums and gives Cat a small smile of her own.

“I got him a Stormtrooper light,” she reveals, expecting a scoff – but Cat doesn’t react. Kara cocks her head. “Star Wars? I got him a Star Wars nightlight. It looks like one of their helmets.”

“Right,” Cat says vaguely and Kara stares at her.

“You don’t know what Star Wars is. What? _How?_”

“I don’t watch cult phenomena.”

Kara splutters, but decides to shake her head and vow to herself to make Cat watch the infamous trilogy with her at some point – she’s heard there might even be a prequel series coming out, in the next couple of years.

“_Ieiu,_ why doesn’t Kal-El look like us?” asks Carter, wet shirt dropping back against his chest as it falls from his mouth. Kara can see where it’s torn and bitten all the way through from his ministrations. “He’s all dark, like chocolate or- or my shoes.”

“_Carter-El_,” Kara scolds, “It’s just a different level of melanin. Don’t compare people to shoes.”

“Really,” Cat adds, arm wrapping around the confused young boy tightly. “Don’t, Carter.”

“Kal-El is darker because his mother was. My aunt Lara looked the same.” Kara glances at Cat, who’s eyes light with interest at the mention of her family. “She was my aunt by marriage, my uncle Jor-El’s wife. She was an artist. She was going to sponsor my application to the Artist’s Guild.”

“How are your paintings, by the way?”

“I sold a few that were in storage – it’s a lot harder to paint with these two ruffians around, that’s for sure!”

* * *

_ National City, Earth; June of 1996 _

“_Ieiu_, Kal-El flying!”

Kara immediately races through the apartment, bedroom door flying open as she speeds into the living room. Her eyes track Carter building a Lego model on the ground and then she finds Kal-El; he’s floating above his crib, batting the air around him in reach of butterfly that had come in through the open window.

“Oh Rao,” Kara flies up to take him in her arms, focusing on Kal-El – though not so much that she doesn’t notice Carter escaping to her room. Kal-El wriggles in her grasp, whining, but Kara shakes her head and frowns at him.

“Naughty Kal-El, no flying, it’s not safe,” she says sternly. Kal-El is a model Kryptonian baby, unlike Carter, so she isn’t surprised when he quiets down. _Safe_ is a word he knows, as is _naughty_. From her room, she hears the sloshing of paint, so she floats back down to the ground and marches unhappily towards her room, pinning the now-frozen Carter with a glare as she catches him red-handed – or in this case, yellow-handed.

Kara looks between her sons and shakes her head.

“What am I going to do with you?”

* * *

_ National City, Earth; December of 1997 _

“That is a happier anecdote, I will admit,” says Cat, who looks down at Carter and runs her hand across his ribs. He wiggles, giggling at the ticklish sensation, biting back a grin. “Were you pretending to be a little artist, like your mother?”

“Not really good at art,” Carter blushes, shy.

“Neither am I,” Cat confides.

Kara struggles to keep her smile at Cat’s confession to her son – to _their _son. Smiling at each other there beside her on the sofa, it takes all of Kara’s willpower not to stare. The similarities are so stark when they’re in close proximity like this. Carter shares her fine bone structure and her nose; and their builds are the same, with tiny shoulders and minimally proportioned legs, arms and torsos – but what bothers Kara the most about her own deception is their personalities.

Carter can be quiet when he wants to be, just like Cat. He can also be very clearly _present_, though Kara’s not sure which of them he inherited the confidence from. Then there are the little things – like not being good artists and frowning at the sight of kiwi.

Kara wonders when Cat will ask about Carter’s non-existent father again – Kara wonders if she’ll be able to keep up the charade when she does.

On her chest, Kal-El yawns prettily. Kara brushes his hair again, thinking it about time they left.

“One more story,” she murmurs, looking Cat’s way. “Then I should probably put this one to bed.”

“And me,” Carter says, like a good boy. Kara beams at him and he shares her sunny grin when he smiles back at her. Cat has a fond expression on her face by the end of it.

“I won’t impose,” the other woman replies, reaching to tuck one of Carter’s curls behind his ears. “Would you like me to put you to bed, Carter? Then your mother can put Kal-El down. I know how long it takes to dislodge your octopus of a brother from her clothes without ruining them.”

Kara chuckles as Carter nods enthusiastically, the four of them migrating off the couch towards the nursery. One of the things Kara wholly protested when raising Carter was keeping him in the same room as her; on Krypton, it was just not done. KALEX robots would monitor the children and attend to them in the interim between the parents being notified and their arrival, should they need assistance.

_Cat’s right though – he’s an octopus_, Kara thinks as she attempts to dislodge her youngest son and cousin. Eventually, she just decides to let the shirt be dismantled, ripping it up the sides so Kal-El can keep his grasp of it as she places him in his daybed.

Carter giggles. “_Ieiu_, you’re not in a shirt!”

“Nope!” Kara replies, glancing over to wink at him, hair falling across her chest. She doesn’t expect to catch Cat taking her own quick peek and blinks rapidly when she does. “Oh.”

Cat meets her eyes, deliberately looking her up and down once before turning her head away, expression cool. She addresses Carter, “Time for bed, young man.”

Kara, feeling vaguely distressed at the lack of clear opinion, leaves the room in search of a new shirt. She finds one, then finds a hoodie to go with it. _What was I thinking?_ She scolds herself for forgetting Cat was there, knowing that while Cat is aware that Kal-El does have a tendency to damage her wardrobe, it’s another thing to voluntarily undress in the room as her.

_She only sleeps with the same person once,_ Kara can’t help but think bitterly, glowering at the snowstorm still raging outside. _Is it so much to ask that she actually do more? Maybe- maybe I’d like her to appreciate me. Maybe I’d like her in Carter’s life as more than just his other mother…_

Kara stops glowering at the snowstorm, having an epiphany. It’s like a starburst in her mind, vivid and florid with colours and realisations.

_I want Cat in my life as more than a friend – as more than just Carter’s other mother._

Giggles. Happy goodnights. Cat’s feet against the carpet and the door to the nursery opening. Kara hears her approach from behind, heartbeat measured and memorised; she could find Cat in a city of millions, if she had to.

“Nice tattoo, by the way. I never said.”

“I’m surprised you never asked before,” Kara replies, still staring past the window panes. Cat stands close beside her, arms brushing. “I received it as an honour, when I was young. I graduated from…well, basically university on Krypton. I was welcomed into the Science Guild with honours, though by law I wasn’t allowed to choose that path officially until I turned fifteen.”

“Is that why you joined the Artist’s Guild?” Cat questions.

Kara finally looks at Cat, quiet. “It was,” she says. Outside, the still-raging storm picks up in intensity. “It’s late in the day and unless I flew you, you won’t be able to get home for a few hours, yet.”

Cat scoffs, smiling as she drawls, “Everything I enjoy in National City, bar Catco, is right here, Kara.” Her hand reaches up, tracing along the length of Kara’s jaw. Her eyes are soft with caring. “Right here.”


End file.
